Settlement

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To see a list of the current settlements, see the Category Settlements.

Description

A settlement, or deed, is an area of land owned by a player or group of players: mayor and optional citizens. A settlement is marked by a settlement token in the exact center.

See this website for details about the new deed system introduced in February of 2010: http://sites.google.com/a/wurmonline.com/new-deed-system/

Placing or Trading an already Placed Settlement requires Premium Time. If premium time expires for the mayor, the mayor DOES NOT lose the deed or their role as mayor.

The mayor is the most important citizen of a settlement.

A character may only be a citizen or mayor of one settlement at a time per server. The same character can be a citizen or mayor of another settlement on a different server. A player with multiple characters (alts) can have each character in a different settlement on the same server and may own multiple settlements on the same server if each character is the mayor of one settlement.

Advantages

• Control of who is allowed which actions within the settlement area
• Deed guards protecting the settlement
• Setting reputations to keep out unwanted people (see Kill on Sight)
• A settlement token to have your bank account at
• Reduced decay on structures
• Maintenance of signs, lamps, banners and flags by spirit guards
• Village chat
• Instant logout when leaving Wurm inside the settlement (some exceptions apply)
• Respawn at your own settlement from anywhere on the map when you die
• Respawn at allied settlements that are within 50 tiles when you die
• Skill-loss when dying on your own deed or allied deed is only 0.025. Suicides have the normal skill-loss of 0.25
• Branding animals to show the village they belong to and to allow them to be lead by villagers
• A productivity bonus to item crafting for the citizens the older the deed is; see acquired knowledge in the village info at the token.
• An enchanting bonus similar to the productivity bonus

Founding

To found a settlement, you must first obtain a settlement form. Unlike writs, which are created by building a house, settlement forms must be purchased from an NPC trader. The price of a form is 10 silver.

When you use your settlement form to found a deed, you will have a credit of 10 silver. 3 silver will always be reserved for upkeep. The other 7 silver is used to cover your tile costs, and any left over will also go to your upkeep. If your inital deed would cost more than 7 silver, you must have the extra amount in your bank account.

Stand on the tile that you want your village centre token to be on, right-click the Settlement deed paper in your inventory, and choose Village > Found Village. A series of forms follows where you can set:

• Settlement size, east-west and north-south
• Perimeter size, beyond the five free tiles
• Village name and motto and whether it is a democracy or autocracy
  • You can rename a village in the resize option. This resets the productivity bonus of the village.
• Number of guards.

Deed has a rectangular form. One edge of the deed can not be longer than four times the other edge. Minimum is 5. Example: Settlement size east-west 5 and north-south 6 will create a deed 11 tiles by 13 tiles. To visualize the area better, make use of the Survey Area button in the forms that places temporary survey markers at the planned borders.

Notes

• Free player cannot plant a deed, even though they may own one (via premium expiration).
• You need the writs for all buildings within your new settlement area held in your inventory.
  • The initial deed when founding cannot have non-writ houses in the perimeter.
  • However, that does not apply when expanding your perimeter. You can expand a perimeter over houses you do not own.
• Settlements can only be founded within your kingdom. On Chaos or the Epic servers, this might require building guard towers.
• If the founding tile of the settlement has a house or fences, the token is moved to a random spot away from them. The deed borders do not move with it. You cannot build a house or fence on the token tile later on either, but terraforming is possible.
• Token must be placed at least two tiles away from tiles submersed in water.
• Token cannot be inside a cave.
• Aggressive animals in local area prevent planting the deed, kill or lead them away first.
• The mayor can destroy any building on deed even if he/she has not got the writ

Tip: You can test whether you are able to plant a deed at your current location simply by trying to found it.

After founding, you can edit settings from token > Settlement menu, or Settlement deed paper > Village menu.

Perimeter

The perimeter around a deed disallows non-citizens building structures and the founding of other deeds. Your deed perimeter cannot overlap with the perimeter of another deed, though they can share a perimeter border. On the Epic servers, the kingdom guards will hunt down any player that have less than -30 reputation in the deed within the perimeter.

The first 5 tiles around a settlement deed are free perimeter. You can extend beyond the free perimeter, but this will come at a cost. Initial fee per tile is 50 iron, with an added monthly upkeep of 5 iron. Perimeter can be resized at any time.

Resizing

Deeds can be resized by the mayor at the token or with the settlement deed. You cannot resize if the settlement is under siege. There are no refunds for downsizing. Premium time is not required to re-size a settlement.

There's some confusion on this "Extend over a house" rule / ability. It does happen, but may be a bug. Once the situation is clarified, we'll update this section.
You may move your perimeter over a house you don't have the writ to. Although once you do normal rules apply and you'll need the writ to do any further adjustments.

Disbanding

Warning : Do not sail to another server in your cluster between issuing the Disband, and the actual Disbanding of the deed. Doing so may cause you to not receive the refund from the deed and the upkeep. Crossing to anther cluster (Epic / Freedom) is okay, as that is a separate avatar, and the original is still on the deed's server.

• A deed may be disbanded. If manually disbanded, the owner receives half of the cost of the settlement form (5s), and all upkeep in excess of 5 silver. The owner will receive nothing back if the deed is disbanded due to lack of upkeep. The money is placed in the former owner's bank account. It is believed this money comes direct from the King; reasonable since deed money goes to direct to the King.
• Only people with the manage roles permission, or the mayor, may disband the settlement; citizens can stop a disband.
• Disbanding a settlement takes 24 real hours. NOTE: In some cases, it only takes 1 hour to disband a settlement. Reason for this is unknown, but may be related to size, age or number of citizens. (This is likely due to the deed being classified as a 'homestead,' which under the old deed system would only take one hour to disband.)
• When a village disbands, all its gates are unlocked. NOTE: This no longer appears to be true, disbanded a deed in May of 2011 and gates remained locked.

Mayor

All settlements have a mayor. The initial mayor is the founder of the settlement. At any given time, the mayor is the one who holds the deed. Trading the deed makes the new owner of the deed the mayor. A player must be a member of a settlement in order to be appointed as mayor, and must have been a member for at least 24 hours.

Voting

If your deed is a Dictatorship, the mayor cannot be voted out. (This was changed, as a 81% vote used to be enough to evict the mayor)

If your deed is a Democracy, your villages can elect a new mayor by a successful vote, by using the command /vote. Success requires a majority: 51% or more of the votes.

Citizens may vote at any time, once per election. The election ends immediately whenever one candidate has received a majority of the votes, or when all votes have been cast. Elections can continue, even though the incumbent mayor is already clearly going to win, until a majority have voted. Each citizen is allowed only one vote per election, and can only vote for another citizen, not for themselves. A vote cannot be changed after it is cast. If a new mayor is elected, the deed transfers into their possession. Once an election is completed, a new vote will initiate a new election.

Note: Vote command gives the confirmation message: "You vote for Name as mayor this week.", so possibly the mayor can only be changed once per week, regardless of the number of elections?

Citizens

A village can have many citizens, maximum being the number of deed tiles divided by 11. You may remove even that restriction if you pay double upkeep.

Inviting someone to join your village requires that you have the (make people) citizens permission. Right-click them and choose Invite to join. They will get a Settlement invitation confirmation window.

If the village is a dictatorship, the mayor can remove citizens. Citizens can also leave on their own volition using the chat command /revoke <village name>. Citizens of a democracy cannot be removed; they must revoke their citizenship. If you have become a citizen of a settlement in the past 24 hours, you will not be able to join a new village until 24 hours have passed.

Each citizen is assigned a role determining which actions are allowed inside the settlement. Customizing, adding and removing roles requires the manage roles permission.

Spirit Templars (Deed Guards)

Settlements can be protected by Spirit Templars. Hireling or releasing Templars requires the Hire guards permission.

Spirit Templars will attack any aggressive creatures that enter the settlement area, but not the perimeter. Unlike tower guards, they do not respond to calls for help.

They will also attack anyone who is marked as Kill on Sight for that deed. (See KoS and Reputation for details). Citizens with the manage roles permission can also set reputations manually.

The maximum number of Templars you can have is 1 per 49 tiles. Example: Number of Templars in a 31x31 deed is 19. On the Epic servers, the maximum number is limited to 20.

Spirit Templars demand payment. Hiring each new Templar will cost 2 silver summoning cost, or 3 silver if the settlement is on an Epic server. This is deducted immediately from the settlement upkeep, before they spawn. Each Templar also adds 1 silver to the monthly settlement upkeep, or 3 silver if the settlement is on an Epic server.

Templars can be managed at the token under Settlement > Manage guards, or from the Settlement deed paper under Village > Manage guards.

Upkeep

Upkeep money is taken from the village funds every month. If the upkeep fund is depleted, the settlement is disbanded automatically. A large upkeep fund reduces decay on buildings and fences in the settlement. If the fund has more than a month of upkeep, there is no decay at all. Upkeep can be paid at the token under Settlement > Info or Settlement > Manage guards, or from the Settlement deed paper under Village > Manage guards. Anyone can donate money to the upkeep fund at the token, even non-citizens.

only 10% of the upkeep money can be used to pay for deed expansion.

Upkeep draining

On the Wild and Epic servers, citizens of the enemy kingdom can drain your token once all your deed guards are dead. An enemy draining your token will remove 15% of the monthly upkeep cost from the upkeep fund, of which the drainer receives half. Upkeep cost is treated as always being at least 5 silver, which gives a minimum drain of 75 copper (37.5 to the drainer). A drain can occur once every 24 real-time hours. Every time a deed is drained, the drained amount will increase by 50%. This is reset if the deed is not drained for 2 days. Enemies can drain from an adjacent tile and do not need to be on the same tile as the token, even if there is a wall or palisade in the way.

Draining cannot take more money than the upkeep fund actually contains. If a drain empties the upkeep fund completely, the deed will disband in a short while. (The reason given will be the generic lack of upkeep message.) Unlike normal disbands, no money is refunded to the former mayor.

Allies and wars

Someone with the diplomat permission can make alliances or declare wars against other settlements.

To from or add to one right click on a person with diplomacy rights from another village and ask to form alliance.

Allies

• Allies can respawn on the deed if they die within 50 tiles of it.
• Allies have their own deed role.
• Allies have a green outline.
• Allies can loot your corpse when you're online.
• Allies can pick up items on the ground, even if they're on deed and your permissions would otherwise not allow people to do so

Wars

Wars are only possible on the wild server.

When a war is in effect, the normal penalties for same-kingdom fighting do not apply. Enemy citizens will have a red outline. When declaring war it will come into effect 24h after the declaration, unless the other side accepts it, in which case it will start immediately.

Permissions

Permission Roles

Each role can have a different set of permissions enabled. There are no known permissions that control butchering and burying.

Build 

Plan, color, and continue buildings and fences
Also allows lockpicking

Forestry 

Chopping down young trees, picking sprouts, planting sprouts

Cut old trees

is required for cutting down old trees. This setting will not work on its own, so Forestry must still be enabled for a player with this permission to cut any trees at all.

Destroy buildings 

Destroying buildings, building plans, fences, and fence plans. Players with this setting will get a large bonus to damage done, and will be able to quickly destroy structures. Allies with this setting will be able to destroy structures, but will not get the damage bonus
Also allows lockpicking

Farm 

Sowing, farming and harvesting fields
Also allows milking and leading animals

Hire guards 

Changing guard level

Citizens 

Making non-citizens into citizens. If your village has the maximum number of citizens, none can be added.

Manage roles 

Change role permissions and role assignments, change reputations
Also allows disbanding the settlement

Mine rock and ore

Mining

Terraform 

Dig, pack, pave and flatten

Expand 

Expand the settlement with a larger deed

Pass all fences 

Passing through all fences, even locked ones

Lock fences 

Locking fences

Attack citizen 

Attacking citizens

Attack non-citizen 

Attacking non-citizens, disabling this will also keep players from attacking mob's on the deed.

Diplomat 

Form alliances, declare war, make peace

Fish 

Allows fishing

DELETE 

This permission will delete the role if set

These additional permissions are not linked to roles:

Politics

Marking this will make the settlement a democracy

Unlimited citizens

Allows the recruitment of citizens above the maximum amount. While you are above the maximum amount of citizens upkeep is doubled.

Merchants

Allows placing of personal merchants

Items and creatures 

This allows anyone to pick up items and tame animals within the settlement (but not inside buildings). Allies are always able to pick up items, to let them tame animals this permission still needs to be checked.

Cost Calculations

Tools

• Wurm Tools cost calculator
• (No longer working as of 15 July 2012) New Deed system Cost calculator

Detailed breakdown

Cost per tile of a settlement:	200 iron coins
Upkeep cost per tile for settlement:	20 iron coins
Cost per tile for a perimeter:	50 iron coins
Upkeep cost per tile for a perimeter:	5 iron coins
Cost for hiring guard:	Freedom = 2 silver / Epic = 3 silver coins
Guard monthly salary:	Freedom = 1 silver / Epic = 3 silver coins